hellosailor

When you join several other people waiting for the green man at a zebra crossing, after a while think 'this is taking a bl**dy age' and then realise that none of the people who got there before you have pressed the button.

wake to sleep is a method whereby you disrupt a baby's sleep cycle so that they start a new one and hopefully sleep through the time they usually wake up if it's a habitual waking. I think if it was going to work in terms of breaking the habit of a habitual waking then it would take 3 days or so of the baby not waking up at their habitual time, because you were using this method, to change the habit. Some people I know have found it to work brilliantly, i.e the baby has slept through the time they usually get up, others have not found it worked - the baby still wakes at the same time. People also use it to lengthen naps if a baby always wakes at the first sleep cycle of 30-45 mins, whatever it is in the case of your baby. (i.e you might do the jiggle at 20 mins or 30 mins.)

thanks this is all really useful - can I ask, did people find that prices on autotrader or similar sites where they found the car advertised, were indeed lower than when they arrived at cargiant, unless they bought finance? We are also cashbuyers and if the cars are 800 quid more than advertised as some of the reviewers complained, then it somewhat lowers the price gap between cargiant and its competitors so may not be at tempting to go there...

Yes you want to jiggle them enough to disrupt the sleep cycle they're in and start a new one, but not enough to wake them up properly, the horror! It's been a while since I read it but if I remember correctly in the baby whisperer it says to put a hand on the tummy (or more likely back if miss jb is a tummy sleeper now that she's older) and jiggle them, or replace a dummy if they have one etc (guessing miss jb doesn't have a dummy but just to give you an idea of the degree of of 'waking' that's suggested.) I tried this (with some success) a few months ago when mini sailor was a few months old to lengthen naps, if anything I found I wasn't waking her enough, for fear of waking her completely! I guess if you can get them to stir properly and maybe open their eyes for a second or two then that would be ideal - but dicey!

We were hoping to buy a second hand car from cargiant last week but at the last minute we were put off by finding a few reviews on the web which basically said they were fairly dodgy, i.e even though they have an infamous 114 point check people were driving their car home to find it had wheels that would be lucky to scrape through an MOT, broken lighter, dodgy windscreen wiper, and sometimes even bigger probs with engine, gears etc, and that cargiant were basically totally disinterested in this when they contacted customer services. Also a few reviews saying that when they got there the asking price for the car was 700/800 more than on the classified on autotrader and the guy who runs it said when they got there that the autotrader ad price was only if you bought finance etc. Also some people saying the car they found on autotrader was not a photograph of the actual car at cargiant, and the actual car had a bumper falling off, scratches etc, and the owner explained that 'autotrader photos may not be photos of the same car' etc! Unsurprisingly we decided not to go and buy the car that day, but I would be interested to hear other people's experiences of cargiant, I do see a lot of cargiant stickers in cars round here so lots of people do seem to use them. Also, if you type the car we want to buy into autotrader to do a search, almost all of them are being sold by cargiant, you would be hard pushed to find one that isn't from there, so not sure how many options we have! Some reviews on the web were more favourable, and of course I factor in that you don't know who has written reviews and their veracity but I can't help feeling there's no smoke without fire?

thanks, that's useful peterstorm1985!

I have heard good things about wake to sleep method working, and I think the good thing is that if you did it for 3 nights in a row and it wasn't working, then I think you could give up, safe in the knowledge you had given it a whirl? In the babywhisperer she says to do the jiggle 30 mins before the usual wake time (5:15) but somewhere else - I actually think it may have been on a post on a different thread by the sleep expert who sometimes posts on the forum childsleepsolutions - apologies to her if I'm misremembering - it says 60 mins, so you would try at 4:45. I am categorically not a sleep expert - ha! But to my mind it makes more sense to try 30 mins as it suggests in baby whisperer, as you would be disrupting the last sleep cycle miss jb is doing which I would have thought would be the idea, but perhaps if childsleepsolutions reads this post, she can explain the sleep science behind doing it at an hour rather than my foggy guesswork! Hope it works!

Is there a reason not to give milk though? why would you give it a swerve? do you feel there's a reason not to give milk over 1 year old? (not being argumentative by the way, genuinely interested as my daughter will be turning 1 in a couple of months and interested in differing opinions!)

I'm interested in this too, how do you mean Sophie? Give neither cow's milk or formula? What would you give instead?

Sorry to be dull, but does anyone know if you can get mobile phone insurance for a second hand phone? My brother has upgraded and kindly given me his i-phone 3gs, but of course my usual phone insurers won't insure it as it isn't new. Is the only way round this to try to put it on home contents insurance (an 'away from home' clause I guess) or has anyone found insurers who will insure a second hand phone? many thanks for any advice

My best leggings - the ones that wash best and haven't bagged at the knee are from American Apparel (I know it's quite a trendoid shop and you wouldn't catch me in a neon unitard but good leggings!) From memory they come up quite big (perhaps cos an american brand, I notice the same with Gap) so I would go for the smaller size if between sizes.. Hundreds of colours and nice and long, I'm average height but I like my leggings to reach low on the ankle not half way up the calf! look here

I think there's a second hand beco gemini in Merry Go Round, the second hand children's clothes shop on Half Moon Lane at the moment, was in there yesterday and I'm sure I saw one. though having said that...maybe I'm confused and it was a rose and rebellion that I glimpsed if they stock them...

Thanks all, today I will not be adjusting times by putting her down half an hour later because she got up later as I would normally do, I will just stick to usual time and see what happens. Tho I suspect it is to do with developmental stuff as opposed anything I can change by the timing of the nap as last night she woke up at 5am to try to scale her cot and practice kneeling, just as she's been doing in the naps....so think that may be the answer....hope she gets bored of practicing this soon!

You are welcome to come and try our beco gemini on with your little boy in it if you'd like to see one up close and see how it feels, we are in central East D.

Pickle I think you're right, I think it is prob best to stick to the same time rather than tweak according to what time they wake up - tomorrow I shall be putting her down at the same time regardless of what has gone before in the day. Hope it makes a difference! Yak, that's a tricky thing! I've already thought about this! Because she only sleeps for half an hour for her morning nap, and that nap is pretty early (often starts as early as 8:30 as she has often been awake since 6:15), it pretty much means she has to go down for lunchtime nap at 12:00. Unless I start doing lunch ridiculously early at 11:00, there is not much time to digest so she does tend to have lunch at 11:40ish and then go straight down. Having said that, going down so soon after eating has never kept her awake before, and in fact today, the briefest lunchtime nap yet, she went down for the nap over an hour after she finished lunch so I don't think that's the solution, good thinking though!

I have heard good things about LIDL own brand 'Toujours Nappies' - but have never tried them, must do so! They regularly beat Pampers and Huggies in reviews apparently and are obviously cheap in comparison. Think they are ?5.19 for 50 nappies from the googling I've just done Look here and here

Can I just ask a logistics question which may be relevant while I've thought of it? In the morning sometimes minisailor wakes up at 6:00 / 6:15 am and sometimes not till 7:00am. Regardless, we never actually go up and get her until 7:00, but the days nap timings tend to be tweaked according to what time she actually woke up. i.e I have always made it that there is 3 hours between waking up from her morning nap and going down for her lunch time nap, so sometimes this means her lunch nap is at 12:00, sometimes 12:30 etc, according to what time the morning nap is, which is in turn dependent on what time she actually woke up for the day. I have tried putting her down at the same time for morning nap regardless but it's not a good idea - if she's been kicking about in her cot since 6:15 she definitely needs to be put down for her morning nap earlier than if she has actually slept till 7. Therefore, is it best, do you think, to stick to the exact same time every day for her afternoon nap even if this means that sometimes she will have been awake for less time in between naps than she is used to? i.e today, very unusually, I put her down for lunch nap at 1:00 because she had woken at 7:00am (unusual) and had napped for a whole hour in the morning (also unusual and meant she was up late from her morning nap at 10:00 so I waited the usual 3 hours to put her down for lunch, knocking lunchtime back nap to 1:00 for fear she wouldn't be tired enough if I did it at the usual time.) Would it have been better to still do the nap at 12:00ish even though she would only have been awake for 2 hours before it rather than the 3 she is used to? phew, long winded, tired, unsuccinct question...sorry

Thanks you lovely lot, all useful advice. Unfortunately she generally only naps for 30 mins in the morning (very rarely she goes to 40 mins or an hour) so I can't cut it down any more without dropping it altogether! I will definitely try to put her down earlier for her lunchtime nap tomorrow to see if it makes any difference though.. Inkmaiden I'm hoping you're right and that it is related to the crawling development. She definitely springs up and starts climbing around her cot when she comes into a light sleep phase, rather than rolls over and continues to snooze as she once would have done. Having said that she's been crawling about a month and the cutting down the nap has only started in last few days so I fear may not be the culprit...we'll see!

Ole, I am shuddering somewhat at the thought that it might not go back! Interesting what you say about putting her down earlier, it has occured to me that even though she is being put down at the same time as normal, she is obviously increasingly active during the morning, now crawling etc, so is perhaps getting more tired more quickly, so is maybe now overtired at her usual nap time...will try putting her down earlier tomorrow!

SB I don't drive! hoho! But I'm going for a buggy walk in a second! Have to get out! Inkmaiden thank you I might experiment with that if it doesn't change soon, she still has a morning nap but she definitely still needs it, so if I was to see what happens if we didn't have it (*pales*) then it would definitely be a case of me trying to lengthen her lunchtime nap by dropping the morning nap rather than something that she is ready to drop organically. So I will prob wait a bit to see if this sorts itself out before trying that measure. It doesn't seem to be a case of waking up because she is not sufficiently tired to go for longer, more that she is all of a sudden too wired to get through that first sleep cycle - though I'm not doing anything differently to cause this, i.e not suddenly putting her down later than she is used to. they are such complicated little creatures!

Hi SB, Yes, I do leave her crawling around her cot for at least ten mins to see if she'll re-settle (unless she starts crying) but at the moment there's no hope she will! We are very consistent with naps but in the last few days I have experimented with times a little to see if, like you say, it could be that she now needs to be awake for longer before going down at lunch time, but after experimenting I don't think it is that unfortunately as that would be a pleasingly easy solution! She was very tired and seemed desperate to be put down for the nap today...but still....ping! at 30 mins...awake but in no way refreshed of course. She is now so exhausted and grizzly she doesn't even want me to put her down for a second, just starts crying as soon as I let go of her, exactly the same yesterday...it's going to be another looooong afternoon....:-S

I hope to come next week! Sounds great!

Minisailor (almost 9 months) has started waking up at 30-40 mins - basically after 1 sleep cycle of her lunch nap - and instead of just stirring and going back to sleep for another hour as she normally does (we have a video monitor so I know she has always stirred at this point!), she now sits bolt upright and tries to scale the cot divider in her cot like it's Becher's Brook. I go upstairs to re-settle her to find her on her knees, wide awake, holding on to the cot bars. Nothing will get her to resettle - she is WIDE AWAKE, grrrr. The rest of the day is now spent with her grizzling and crying loads because she is knackered, to the point that I don't want to take her out anywhere in the afternoon because she is so fractious that it just becomes an exercise in damage limitation, and yet staying indoors all afternoon with a strung out baby is equally difficult! This is seriously getting me down - we all know that the afternoon nap (which even before this has only ever been about 1hr 20mins for the last few months, not ever the holy grail of 2 - 2.5 hours I hear people talk about!) is the only chance you get to sit down and shovel a pitta bread into your mouth, send an email, wash up etc, and I'm finding the day is very different when it basically isn't happening! Is this a phase? She has nothing obvious bothering her or waking her, it's more as if she's too wired to resettle when she comes into light sleep after 30mins so I guess could be developmental stuff...

Um no, I don't really think you 'need to be prepared for your children to be hurt (i.e knocked down)' by a drunk person when you go to a pub, anymore than you would anticipate being knocked down yourself by someone who was so drunk they couldn't control their own limbs. People don't take children to pubs in the evening, it's at lunch time / afternoon you might go for food as a family, and I think if someone was so drunk they were actually knocking people over in the Actress / Bishop etc by that hour, it would be pretty unusual...;-)

Mini Sailor did exactly the same thing, in the first week after she learnt to do that she sometimes skipped a whole nap altogether, just to practice her moves, until I gave up and brought her back down! It passed quickly and now she only does it if she is overtired and wired when I put her down, or not tired enough, to burn energy for 5 mins before passing out..can only imagine the fun and games when she starts pulling herself up to stand in her cot...::o